HOMILIES PREACHED BY FATHER ALTIER ON THE FEAST OF SAINT MARK THE EVANGELIST, APRIL 25

In the Gospel reading today, the last thing Jesus tells his disciples to do before He goes into Heaven is to go out into the whole world and proclaim the Good News, to preach the Gospel to all creation.

After His Ascension, Saint Mark simply says that the eleven went out and preached everywhere; and the Lord continued to work with them. He was with them always and He confirmed the message through various signs. But, of course, we know (from all of the apostles) that they suffered. They suffered greatly because of this message. Yet, God was with them throughout.

Wednesday April 25, 2001

Second Week of Easter

Reading (1 Peter 5:5b-14)

Gospel (St. Mark 16:15-20)

That is the mystery we always have to keep reminding ourselves of : If we are going to do God’s work, it is going to come with suffering. It is not going to be a simple sort of thing. Suffering is necessary for God’s work; so, we cannot think that if we are suffering this must not be of God. In fact, it is just the opposite. If it is too easy, we have to ask ourselves, "Why? What is wrong that we are not struggling? Why is it that the devil does not care?" After all, Saint Peter says that "the devil is prowling like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." That is the nature of the things we are up against. Each one of us needs to realize that we are now going out into the world, trying to live the Gospel message, and in that way trying to proclaim it to others. Now, we are the ones who have the devil in opposition to us. He is going to try to destroy what we are doing. He is going to provide certain sufferings for us, roadblocks that we will have to overcome; but it is not us, it is the Lord.

After all, if we listen to what Saint Peter tells us, he talks about the humility we must have in our relationships with one another; and, more importantly, we must have humility before God. He says, "Bow humbly under God’s mighty hand, so that in due time He may lift you on high." The important line for us is when he says, "Cast all your cares on Him because He cares for you." Give everything to Jesus and He will do everything for you. He will work with you, He will work through you. All you have to do is bring everything to Him. The problem most of us suffer from is we do not fully believe in the love of God. God is love - that is all - God is love; nothing else, just one hundred percent pure love. God can do nothing but love. He loves you absolutely, infinitely, completely; with His whole being He loves us.

But we do not believe that. Consequently, we do not give our things to the Lord because we do not really trust that He is going to do what He has promised to do. Because we cannot love perfectly, we think God cannot love perfectly. This is the devil - roaring, prowling, destroying. That is the work of Satan convincing us that God is like us. It is the other way around; we are in the image and likeness of God. It is time that we stop trying to re-create God into our image and likeness; it does not work. It makes God very fallible, it makes Him very weak; He is not - that’s us. What we need to do is recognize our own weakness, be humble in that weakness, and learn to depend totally upon God. Give everything to Him. He will do it all if we trust Him, if we are willing to let Him love us the way He wants to. He will never force it on us; it is our free will that requires us to say "Yes." On one level, we say, "Of course, I want God to love me as much as He possibly can! As much as I am able to be loved, that is what I want!" Then, we put the wall up and shut the heart down because we are afraid to be that vulnerable, that out of control, to let go to that extent. That is the problem; that is the fear; that is what the devil plays on. So, we need to keep reminding ourselves - "Bow humbly under God’s almighty hand. Cast your cares on Him because He cares for you."

Note: Father Altier does not prepare his homilies in advance, but relies solely upon the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

This text was transcribed from the audio recording with minimal editing.

Pride or Humility?

Thursday April 25, 2002

Fourth Week in Easter

Reading (1 Peter 5:5b-14)

Gospel (St. Mark 16:15-20)

In the first reading today, we hear from Saint Peter that we must clothe ourselves in humility. This is absolutely critical for anything else. Without humility, we cannot grow in holiness - it is just that simple. Now most of us would like to be humble, but most of us do not want to do what it will require to get it because, unless God chooses to infuse humility into you (which normally He does not do), what He does is provide humility through humiliation. And most of us do not like to be humiliated at all. We have way too much pride to think that we could even want to be humble. That is the problem: While we know it is something that we need, most of us really do not want it.

But when we realize the necessity of it - that there is no growth in holiness without it and that there is no way we are going to be able to oppose the Evil One without it - then we begin to understand that we need to ask for it. It is not something that is optional; it is absolutely a necessity. Saint Peter tells us, then, that we have to be vigilant and we need to oppose the devil "who is prowling like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour". The devil’s strength is pride. As long as there is pride in us, the devil has a door that is wide open so that he can tempt, so that he can cause us trouble, so that he can destroy us. But if we are humble, the devil has no power over us.

If we are proud, we are going to try to fight the devil by ourselves. If we are humble, we are going to turn to God. We need to learn to be little children in the hand of God and in the arms of Our Blessed Lady. But most of us are too proud to think that we can be little children, and so again, we fight it. The problem is that we are doing exactly the opposite of what Saint Peter tells us. What most of us are doing is opposing God and not the devil because we are not doing it God’s way. The devil says, "Go ahead, take me on yourself. Get your ire up and be proud! Fight against me by your own strength. I’ll even let it appear that you have beat me on a few occasions because then you will be even more hardened in your pride and you will think that you can beat me again." God, on the other hand, says, "Just be humble. Just be a little child. Throw yourselves upon My mercy. Place yourselves in the arms of My Mother, and the devil will have no power over you."

That’s all that is really necessary, but we have to be willing to do it. So we need to pray for humility - and you need to understand that if you do, the answer is going to come, normally, by being humiliated. Mother Teresa always said, "It takes a lot of humiliation to gain a little humility." So if you really desire the humility, be prepared for what is going to come, and rejoice when it comes. Do not curse the Lord for allowing you to be humiliated. Do not fight against it. That is the pride again. Just accept it. Be humble enough to simply accept what God sends. Then the humility will come.

When the humility is there, then you will have the power to be able to do whatever God wants you to do. Then the power will be there to resist the devil entirely because you are not going to try to do it alone or by any strength of your own; but rather, in your humility, in your childlike simplicity, you will turn to Our Lord and to Our Lady and you will rely upon them, upon their strength, and upon their grace. Then, with Our Lady, you will crush the head of the ancient serpent.

*This text was transcribed from the audio recording with minimal editing.

Monday April 25, 2005

Fifth Week of Easter

Reading (1 Peter 5:5b-14)

Gospel (St. Mark 16:15-20)

In the Gospel reading, Our Lord tells us today that there are signs that are going to accompany any person who believes. He tells us that if we are baptized and live the faith, we are going to be saved. He tells us then that someone who has this faith is going to be able to speak new languages; they are going to be able to handle serpents; they are going to be able to cast out demons; they will be able to heal people.

Now you might look at yourself and think, “But I can’t do those things, so does that mean I don’t believe?” No. What it means is that there are some people to whom these gifts are going to be given, but it does not imply that they are going to be given to everybody. Each one of us has different gifts. Saint Paul makes that very clear when he talks about all the various functions that people have within the Church. In the Mystical Body, each person has his or her own function, and so it does not mean that everybody has all of these things.

But at the same time that we are looking at what it is to believe and to make sure that we are not going to be condemned, Saint Peter, on the other hand, tells us that we have to be sober and vigilant because our opponent the devil is prowling like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. What we see then, as Saint Peter says, is that we have to resist him, steady in our faith. We need to make sure that faith is strong. Not faith in the fact that we can speak in tongues or the fact that we can heal people or whatever it might be, but just simple faith in Jesus Christ. If we were to put faith just in some kind of external sign that we have, we are going to fail because the faith then is not in Christ but the faith is in something that we think we can do. And the real fear is that we would start to look at it as being our own: “Look what I can do,” rather than, “Look at what Jesus is doing in me.” That is the reason why He oftentimes does not provide these sorts of things, because our pride would get in the way and we would be lost. The devil is very shrewd, and he is going to look for any opening to be able to get in.

So God in His mercy does not give us all these extraordinary gifts because He knows we would be in trouble if we had them since it requires humility, as Saint Peter begins with. He tells us that we are to clothe ourselves in humility because that is the one thing Satan cannot get. He can attack us pretty much in any way except humility. If we have humility, Satan is done. That is what we need to be about. If we have humility, then we are going to accept every element of the faith. We can look right down the list of all the things the Church teaches, and the person who is truly humble is going to accept every last one of them without the slightest hesitation.

We have everything exactly laid out for us. If we are going to have that faith, as Saint Peter says, then we are going to suffer just like everyone else who has faith. If we have faith, the gift that God will give all of us is suffering and humiliations – and that is something we can be guaranteed of. Now you can look at it from the other side. Instead of saying, “Do I speak in tongues and do I have the gift of healing and prophecy and all these other things?” Do not worry about that. Is God giving you some sufferings and humiliations? If so, then you are doing just fine. If not, I would begin to worry. That is what it really comes down to because these are the things that Satan cannot deal with. As long as we are remaining faithful in the midst of the struggles, then we are going to be victorious in Christ; then, as we heard in the Gospel, we will not be condemned because we are truly believing in Christ. We are believing in Him not in the midst of extraordinary signs, but we are believing in Him and remaining firm in our faith in the midst of testing, in the midst of sufferings and trials and humiliations. When that is the way that we are, then we can rejoice and be glad because at that point the faith is being proven, it is being demonstrated, and we remain faithful to Jesus Christ in the midst of those kinds of difficulties. Then we can be reasonably sure of our salvation.

*This text was transcribed from the audio recording with minimal editing.

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